Existence: Pending Approval

By Katherine "Neco" Kafruni

Explore the fragmentation of identity shaped by immigration, memory loss, labor, and bureaucratic control through an immersive, three-part installation that brings together documents, found objects, and personal artifacts in the artist's search for selfhood. The complex nuances of the artist's lived experiences challenge the reductive structures that attempt to define identity. For more information, contact the branch at 305-643-8574 or fuenteso@mdpls.org. All ages.

Explore the fragmentation of identity shaped by immigration, memory loss, labor, and bureaucratic control through Existence: Pending Approval. Developed over nearly a decade, the artist’s search for selfhood materializes through documents, found objects, and personal artifacts that form a visual language of resistance against systems of classification. As an immigrant in Miami, artist Katherine ‘Neco’ Kafruni challenges the reductive structures that attempt to define identity, asserting a more complex and lived experience. Existence: Pending Approval takes shape with an immersive, three-part installation structured around titled themes, such as ‘The Child’, ‘The Worker’, and ‘The Adult’.

Memory, with its distortions and gaps, serves as a foundation for the work. Early experiences of home and childhood exist in fragments—some preserved, others blurred by time and trauma. Displacement and post-traumatic stress disrupt access to the past, leaving behind a fractured sense of recollection. The works featured in this exhibit reflect this instability, using ephemeral materials, fading imagery, and delicate surfaces to evoke the shifting nature of memory.

Existence: Pending Approval examines the broader forces that dictate visibility and belonging. It exposes how immigrant labor is often depersonalized and how bureaucracy—through identification documents, temporary permits, and renewal records—turns one’s residence into an ongoing negotiation rather than a guarantee of security. These artifacts are embedded, layered, and encased within the work and challenge the notion that existence must be proven through paperwork or labor, instead demanding recognition of selfhood beyond institutional validation.

Bringing together past, present, and the artist’s fragmented selves, ‘The Adult’ theme of the exhibit represents a synthesis of loss and reclamation, opacity and transparency, memory and redefinition. In this final act, Existence: Pending Approval pushes against the idea that identity is solely shaped by external forces, instead asserting the power of self-definition.

About the Artist

Katherine "Neco" Kafruni is a Miami-based Arab-Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, self-acceptance, and queer experiences through sculptural paintings, street photography, video art, and printmaking. Their practice, often figurative and community-driven, interweaves personal narratives with themes of visibility and connection within the queer community.

Kafruni’s work has been recognized and awarded through various platforms, including the Fredric Snitzer Visual Arts Honors Program, a micro-grant from Green Space Miami, and the Artist as Catalyst Production Internship from The Peace Studio. Their exhibitions were featured in Locust Projects, Deering Estate, Green Space Gallery, and O Cinema Theater. In 2024, they curated Lost in Reverie: Tales from the Playground at the New World School of the Arts’ Gallery.

Beyond their studio practice, Kafruni is deeply committed to arts education, having taught at Paul L. Dunbar K-8 Center and worked with organizations such as Silent Victims of Crimes, The Bass Museum STEAM+ program, and Minds of Tomorrow. Through their residency with ProjectArt, they have provided arts programming for children, fostering dialogue, empathy, and empowerment. Their work creates spaces where individuals can see themselves reflected and affirmed.

Upcoming events